Most liked posts in thread: Tracey feckin Brabin

Not AWOL. Just have had nothing much to say really, that I haven't already said and couldn't see the point of spending too much of my time on here reading your tedious reactionary gloating. I was fully expecting a terrible set of election results for Labour and that's mostly what happened. Good to see Tracey Brabin get in though.

Many English people seem to like having a lying, overprivileged public school Twit and his equally overprivileged public school mates as their Prime Minister and cabinet. Their prerogative, I guess. Johnson is undoubtedly benefitting from the vaccine bounce at present, despite having made disastrous decisions (or the lack of them) for most of last year. He is also being shielded by the pandemic from any negative consequences of Brexit. And the almighty *@?$ up made by the EU over vaccines has, of course, played into his hands big time.
But he has also stolen Labour's thunder by spending money in targeted areas, which is shrewd. And he is still waging his culture wars which, of course, appeals to the lowest common denominator views of many people in England.

The country is now hopelessly divided between the socially liberal big cities, which vote Labour, and the socially conservative ex industrial towns and rural areas which vote Tory. Because of the way our first past the post system works it takes many more votes to elect a metropolitan MP than a rural or provincial one, so the Tories end up with big majorities that significantly inflate the extent of their support. This makes it very difficult to see how Labour can win a general election any time soon, unless the Tories do something truly horrendous.

The Labour Party is also hopelessly split. The idiots who claim that last Thursday's results vindicate Corbyn and that we need to be swinging further left are living in cloud cuckoo land. Unfortunately the Starmer end of the party has been totally uninspiring. Starmer has been massively hamstrung by the pandemic, of course. If he criticises the government too much he gets accused by the right of 'playing politics' with a national crisis. And if he doesn't then he gets accused by the left of being a closet Tory. It's doubtful that any Labour leader could have turned things around in a year, even in normal circumstances and certainly not in these exceptional ones.. But there's still no doubt that Starmer, who I voted for as leader, has been a big disappointment. I think he'll have to buck his ideas up soon or there will be a push to get him out. If that happens then I think Andy Burnham would be the next leader. I think he'd have a better chance of uniting the various party factions and appealing to ordinary working people - and I think he'd be a tough cookie opponent to Johnson.

I think Johnson will abolish the Fixed Term Act and call a general election in 2023 and win it. By how much will depend on factors such as how the economy recovers from the pandemic, how well or badly Brexit pans out once the pandemic recedes and stops masking the issue and, of course, whether Labour can stop infighting and become a coherent opposition, which they certainly aren't at the moment.
That enough for you?

 

Not awol, I do tend to not read many threads though, admittedly. I could literally predict the way a thread will pan out by the subject anyway. It’s all become very tedious.

 

Well there will be a bye election in Batley and Spen now. The Labour Majority there is only about 3k. With what happened in Hartlepool, it's a very winnable target by the Tories.

 

But none of these are because of the system though - it's a misplaced analysis. You are quite right about the 1951 result though but the fact you need to go back 70 years shows it's not actually a symptomatic advantage one way or another, it's a fluke result and the foible of the system that can work both ways.

It's the simple fact that the right can basically organise themselves into a single party but the "left" can't. There's a relatively narrow window of being acceptably right of centre but being left of centre swings all the way from Corbyn to Blair. The failing of this analysis is that you're trying to say that a vote for Blair and Corbyn (or Lib Dem and Green) should be grouped together as "left" but there's no actual reason for that, in some respects they are more diverse than grouping Blair and Cameron together. You - and the Guardian - are trying to put a multi variant analysis into just two silos, with a strict cut off point between left and right but that's not the reality.

So ,

1) Only if you use the flawed grouping system and the fact that the "left" can not workably pull themselves into a single party is part of the reason why they're unelectable. It's not a failing of the system that they keep falling out and dividing.

2) This isn't symptomatic of one one party though. It will always work that way in terms of the victor. (2005 - 26,905 votes to elect a Labour MP, 44.368 to elect a Conservative, 96, 540 to elect a Lib Dem) Whoever wins will have similar stats.

3) You're only looking at half the equation. it wasn't Johnson's increase in votes that caused the result. It was Corbyn's 8% decrease in votes that created the gap. When that happens you don't really need to see much of an increase to gain seats.

I think every government this country has ever had has had more people vote against them then for them. That's how a multi party system works but this idea that the system is stacked against the Labour party or the general left is deeply flawed. The flaw comes from the disparate nature of the left, not from the system itself.

On the wider point you're right that PR works better than FPTP in reflecting the will of the people, however it creates weaker government and is therefore much better for electing single individuals such a mayors, etc, rather than assemblies of people.

 

Vote early, vote often.

 

He's a woke champion. And as a champion of the woke he doesn't accept anyones opinion but his own.

 

No, it isn't.
Which is why most other civilised democracies don't use FPTP.

 

Exactly. Voter ID is a solution for a non-existing problem, as the Tories well know.
Introducing voter ID is nothing more than a blatant piece of voter suppression, straight out of the Republican Party playbook.

 

It made me laugh when James O'Brien said on his show today there was little history of voting fraud in this country. Really? Peterborough and Bradford spring to mind straight away.

 

There's no evidence of significant voter fraud in this country. Yes, there have been small pockets in places like Bradford but it's insignificant in the scheme of things.
The Tories introducing voter ID is straight out of the Trump/GOP playbook. It's a 'solution' to a non existent problem. It's designed to make it harder for young people and minorities, who often don't have driving licences or passports, to vote, knowing full well that those people are more likely to vote Labour than Tory. It's a totally cynical piece of voter suppression imported from states like Florida and Georgia, who have been doing this stuff for years.

 

And you being a married man @Storck, don't you know they can multi task.

 

Actress!

 

A deluded young man.

 

Good points about Andy Burnham and the Labour Party getting its act together but I'm not holding my breath. I don't think the electorate voted for Boris and his crew because they are posh public school twits. It was more to do with their stance on the EU and their policies in general. The problem with Labour in the last 10 years is that along with their party infighting they campaign on what THEY think the public should want instead of listening to what they are saying. It's a crazy situation when the Tories appeal to ordinary working man and woman. The Champagne Socialists tag is a perception that Labour should be ashamed of because it isn't far from the truth.

 

I know you didn't type twit, I'm afraid I'm getting on a bit and I only read through what you had to say once.
I've just read through your reply (twice) and agree with all you have to say regarding the vote share and how under the present system Labour will struggle to win a General Election. There are other issues as well. Some people think it will take a couple of generations for the older voters who maybe favour the Tories to die off. Personally I find that view disappointing to say the least, I would rather the Labour sought to broaden their appeal. I haven't got much time for Tony Blair these days but prior to 1997 Labour were almost unelectable but he found away to change that, I'm not sure Starmer can do that because the far left have too much influence at the moment. I'm no lover of the Tories but one thing they've cottoned on to is the fact that the party faithful, Tory or Labour, don't get you elected, it's the floaters who flip flop. Some also think we have a right wing media who influence the vote, I certainly don't see that. The biggest media outlet in the country is the BBC and they are very anti Tory and their stance against Brexit was embarrassingly bias.
Another problem that Labour have is the "red wall" vote. The Tories haven't got a good record on keeping promises but if they do follow up on rewarding that vote they may win those areas over for future elections as they obviously feel ignored by Labour. There is no one answer to these issues in the near future.